A different world

I was watching Wheel of Fortune the other night and a gentleman on there won a $8100 trip for two ..... to Belize.  I wondered immediately where it is in Belize that three nights would cost $8100.  I was less than 48 hours back from a mission trip to Belmopan, Belize and all I could think was that of what I saw there, an entire village could be bought for that amount.  $8100 in American money is $16,200 in the Belizean currency.
I got home late on Saturday and since then, the images of what I saw in Belize have stayed in my mind.  Because of that, you'll probably hear about it for days to come.  I came home with over 1100 photographs and feeling like I have been dropped into a world so full of so much.  I've seen images on television of children wanting nothing more than to be able to go to school and have some food to eat.  There really are places in the world, including our own America, where those children live.  I'm aware of each time I turn on the faucet at the sink or flip the switch to turn on the lights.
Some of us became very emotionally attached to a family of three generations living in a grass-thatched hut.  My first encounter with them was as patients at one of my clinics.  The grandmother is 65 and having medical problems that required me to refer her to an OB-GYN.  Her husband is still living but has his own problems medically.  The next generation, the mother and the father, are unemployed.  Father had an appendectomy eight months ago and has had complications with an infection.  None of the four children attend school because they can't afford the $65 a year for each to attend.
Their home was severely damaged by that hurricane that hit Belize. They're sleeping on a packed mud floor (except for the grandparents, who sleep in hammocks). They wash their clothes and bathe in a tiny pond about a hundred yard from their home. They get their water from a water hole another hundred yards in the opposite direction. Here's what I saw when I visited their home.



Where they get their drinking water.

Where they cook their meals...inside the hut.

Water for washing clothes and bathing

Their home

At one point I was feeling almost embarrassed by all that we have.  But one of my team said that we're not to feel embarrassed by what we have, but to use it to the good of others if possible.  They have so little that it takes very little to make them feel loved.  They're not a country without their problems, but the people I met were very warm and loving.

I can't help but to be moved by what we saw.  When I left there, I didn't feel like I'd been on a vacation by any means, but I felt like I'd been there to do a job.  And I did it.  Now, I'll start getting ready to go back in April.

I've sure missed all of you.  We had people posting on the church blog but I wasn't familiar with the laptop computers so I didn't post from there.

It's good to be home.  Really it is.